Here’s An Update from Last Week's Horrific Shooting at a Oregon Community College

Over the weekend additional details emerged from last week's horrific campus shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. We now know that nine people, not 10, were killed, and nine people, not seven, were injured.

The names of the deceased have also been released and they read as follows:

The death of the shooter, who was 26 years old, was also revealed to be from a self-inflicted gun shot after a brief exchange of fire with authorities. Supposedly, the killer did leave behind a detailed manifesto, but its existence and whereabouts are still unconfirmed, and an explicit motive has not yet been revealed. That said, there have been multiple reports of the killer's general dissatisfaction with the world and as we reported last week, neighbors said he was disagreeable and shy. His father, Ian Mercer, who had not seen his son since he moved to Oregon from California with his mother two years ago, said he was shocked by the incident, and told CNN: "I know words cannot bring families back. I know there's nothing that I can say that can change what happened. But please believe me, my thoughts are with all of those families and I hope they can get through this."

Ian also touched on the topic of guns, saying he had no idea his son owned any firearms and adding, "I'm a great believer you don't buy guns, you don't buy guns."

Today, UCC is open again for the first time since the horrible incident last week Thursday.

UPDATE October 2, 2015; 11:45 a.m.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Yesterday's mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in the Southern Oregon city of Roseburg produced mass panic, mass confusion, and mass misinformation. As local authorities tried to sort out the damage and ID the shooter, the press's immediate need for information went into overdrive. Reports of how many were killed ranged from a low count of seven to a high of 13. The injured were tallied at greater than 20. Today we know that 10 people were killed, and seven were injured.

The shooter too was mistakenly identified as a 20-year-old male. He is in fact, 26, and his name is Chris Harper Mercer, according to The New York Times, who received their update last night from local officials. He wielded three firearms in the attack also according to The Times, and again from updates from local officials.

In a press briefing President Obama beseeched American citizens to inquire about their representative's stances on gun control when they vote and to decide “whether this cause of continuing death for innocent people should be a relevant factor.” This has been the 40th school shooting in America this year. The last one occurred a day earlier at Harrisburg High School in South Dakota. UCC is the first school "mass shooting," a classification by the F.B.I. defined by four or more deaths without a "cooling off" period, this year.

As we reported yesterday, calls from UCC were received around 10:38 a.m. PST. Authorities arrived immediately, and the situation and the killer were neutralized within the hour. The gunman died after sustaining gun shot wounds from trading fire with police officers, but his death wasn't confirmed until last night.

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Terrifying details have emerged from witnesses who either saw or heard the gunman unleashing his tirade in a classroom located inside the college's Synder building.

As reported by the The Times, people in adjoining classrooms gave a gruesome composite of how the events unfolded. Twenty-year-old Cassandra Welding said she heard "several loud bursts, like balloons popping." Brady Winder, 23, who was in a writing class at the time, said he and his classmates heard one shot, and then something heavy, like a body, dropping to the floor. When his teacher called out to the next classroom to see if they were OK, the answer was a round of shots. "We all froze for about half a second," Brady said.

Kortney Moore, 18, who was in the same classroom as the shooter told a the local paper, The News-Review, that the shooter shot through the window, told everyone to lay on the ground, and then asked people to stand up, state their religion, and stared firing. She recounts seeing her teacher shot in the head. The New York Postreported that he told those who identified as Christian, "Good, because you’re a Christian, you are going to see God in just about one second." Then he shot them.

The school was placed on lockdown until around noon, and students were searched for weapons before they were placed on a bus and moved off-site. An information center was set up in a hall at the Douglas County Fairgrounds eight miles from the school, where many family members gathered to get information about their loved ones.

The killer's motive is not yet known, but neighbors described him as unfriendly, shy, and said he wore the same outfit everyday. “He did not want anything to do with anyone,” Bronte Hart, 21, told officials of her upstairs neighbor. Multiple law enforcement agencies are investigating, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and local and state police.

As police look into the killer's possible motives and are combing the internet and message boards for any additional clues to what caused the shooter to snap and take 10 lives, we hope people start questioning our government's seeming inability to create stricter gun laws.

Earlier today a mass shooting took place at Oregon's Umpqua Community College. Thirteen people are reported dead, more than 20 injured, and the shooter is in custody according to CNN and the Associated Press's Twitter account. It wasn't immediately clear whether or not the suspect was injured, but Douglas County commissioner Chris Boice told CNN that he was successfully detained, while USA Today reported that he was dead.

The first 911 calls for the shooting came in at 10:38 a.m. P.S.T., according to The New York Times, and Douglas County fire marshal Ray Shoufler told CNN: "We arrived to find multiple patients in multiple classrooms." The shooter, he said, was neutralized. Patients were immediately taken to nearby hospital, Mercy Medical Center, which is providing live tweets of their patient intake.

The incident is reported to have taken place in only one classroom though, and a freshman student, Josh Simonis, told BuzzFeedNews: "I was sitting in the tutor center waiting for my Psych class to start when a lady came in gasping for air." Other students took to Twitter to share the news and the panic.

UCC is located in Roseburg, a city in the southern part of the state, about three hours from Portland. The school enrolls about 3,300 full-time students and 16,000 part-time students. Currently, UCC is under lockdown, but students are being allowed to leave the campus after being inspected by authorities. Around noon, Josh told BuzzFeed, “Just got evacuated by a state trooper, they’re checking our bags, and evacuating the campus by busses. A lot of police cars and ambulances to transport wounded.”

Already, gun advocates and those who oppose firearms have taken to the airwaves. The Times reports that the group Everytown for Gun Safety says that UCC is the 40th school shooting this year. The last one, at Harrisburg High School in South Dakota, they say, happened yesterday. UCC is the first mass casualty at a school this year. Still, it's another one too many.

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The identity and motive of the shooter are not yet known. We will be providing updates as more information becomes available.